“The LORD will guide you always and satisfy your thirst in parched places, will give strength to your bones and you shall be like a watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters never fail” (Isaiah 58:11).

Bearing Fruit: Cultivating the Garden of Our Hearts

Gardens are an important setting in Scripture. Adam and Eve are created in the Garden of Eden, born out of God’s great love for us (Genesis 2). Jesus prays and suffers in the Garden of Gethsemane before he is arrested and crucified (Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42, Luke 22:39-46)—again, out of love for us.

This Lent, the Catholic Women in Business team is meditating on our interior garden, where we can invite God to help us bear fruit. As St. Augustine wrote, “The turn of phrase by which the man is said to work the land, which is already land, into also being landscaped and fertile, is the same as the one by which God is said to work the man, who was already a man, into also being godfearing and wise.”

This Lent, we’ve been contemplating the idea of cultivating the garden of our heart. After all, gardens are highlighted in key moments of our salvation history: the Garden of Eden, the scene of creation where Adam was the first gardener (and, of course, the fall that followed); Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane; and the moment when Mary Magdalene mistook the resurrected Christ for a gardener. The garden was once a place of death and condemnation—but it became the setting for the world’s restoration and redemption.

Meeting God in the Garden

Now, the lost Garden of Eden symbolizes our own longing for a state of blessedness and tranquility. Perhaps this is why gardens are known for providing relaxation and spiritual rejuvenation. We feel a sense of contentment and achievement when tilling our own land, whether in the form of a patio, an herb garden, or an apartment balcony.

As Catholic poet Dorothy Frances Gurney wrote, “One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.” Gardening is a way of acknowledging God as creator and our role as stewards. When we look at cloistered monastic orders, we can see that they all recognize the need for a garden, not only for physical exercise but for clarity of mind and spirit.

So, what is God trying to communicate to us?

Living Life Seasonally

My prayerful theory is that God is asking us to live our lives like gardeners, embracing the seasons to till the soil, the seasons to grow, the seasons to wait, and the seasons to enjoy the harvest. Appreciating nature is a form of worship, and living our lives seasonally is a way of seeing how God works in the sanctifying stories of our lives.

“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). 

The Bamboo Seed

Sometimes, we feel stuck in a season of waiting or stillness—but God wants us to know that he is always working, even when things feel like they’re on pause. I heard Father Mike Schmitz talk about the Chinese bamboo seed in one of his videos. The seed doesn’t grow at all for the first four or five years, but after being watered and fertilized daily, it eventually breaks through the ground and can grow almost a meter in a single day or 90 feet tall in five weeks! The fact that bamboo is the fastest-growing plant on Earth only convicts and convinces me further of the God-authored symmetry and poetry here; simply replace “daily water” with “daily prayer.”

Thank you, Lord, for being so creative in reminding us that seemingly uneventful seasons are never unimportant!

Now, I ask myself: Am I truly ready to become a laborer in Jesus’ plentiful harvest (Matthew 9:37)? Am I willing to till the soil? Am I able to wait? It’s no coincidence that growing vegetables or plants can help us grow in virtue, encouraging us to be patient, strengthened by the faith that one day, like the bamboo seed, we will see the fruits of our labor in abundance.

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop” (St. Teresa of Kolkata).

Delphine Chui is a London-based cradle Catholic who strayed away from the Church for over 10 years. Convicted and undeniably pursued by God and Our Lady when she hit 30, she has been chasing truth and love ever since. Her radical reversion saw her completely change her life, taking on a whole new approach to her career, friendships and relationships. A former mainstream magazine journalist, Delphine now works full-time on her charity, CareDogs, which helps bring lonely or socially-isolated older people back into the community through canine companionship. When she’s not attending Traditional Latin Mass or doing something cat/dog-related (she has both at home), she can be found listening to podcasts or journaling. You can connect with her and say hi on Instagram.